Tiny Avalanche eyes Genentech's Lucentis

A big-time eye drug could come in a small package from Avalanche Biotechnologies Inc.
The San Francisco biotech startup last month started enrolling patients in its first human trials of a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. That could put the company on the path to challenge Genentech Inc. and a handful of other companies developing drugs to halt the weak, leaky blood vessels that cause wet AMD.
(San Francisco Business Times subscription required.)